In my experience, it's more likely that they have the information. I've been in the field for a number of years, and the nuances about what we call “mental illness” or “mental disorder” have been here for the last 20 to 30 years. However, it doesn't change the way we work on the ground. My understanding is that probation officers often do have that information. We're not talking about their becoming specialized diagnosticians. But if it's a standard that they're at least supposed to include this information in the scope of their own ability, they often have that information. You can just look at different jurisdictions' practices. For example, as I understand, in B.C. and Nova Scotia where it's much more of a practice, I don't think it's an extra burden; it's just a mindset of, if they have the information they're going to share it in this report. Again, my understanding is that 95% of judges who were surveyed said this is extremely helpful in their sentencing.
If we had a robust mental health system and you were convinced that someone who was coming on probation did not have his or her mental health needs met in the correctional system, I think you would have greater confidence that people weren't accidentally getting diverted into the criminal justice system as a result of their mental illness. But because they are, it's highly important to make sure that's tracked and measured, because you don't want it to be cluttering up, if you will, the criminal justice system.